Cosplay

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"Now ostensibly, cosplay means people who dress up as their favorite characters from film and television and especially anime, but it is so much more than that. These aren't just people who find a costume and put it on — They bend them to their will. We are, all of us, injecting ourselves into a narrative that meant something to us. And we're making it our own. We're connecting with something important inside of us. And the costumes are how we reveal ourselves to each other."

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Cosplay is a Portmanteau of the words "costume play". It refers to the fan hobby of making costumes of a concept or person and wearing them at fan gatherings, though is commonly associated with fictional characters from mediums such as anime, TV, movies, comics, video games, etc. At anime conventions cosplay is one of the most popular events.

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Examples:

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Anime and Manga

In episode 16 of Bodacious Space Pirates, pirate captain Marika has members of the Girl's Yacht Club help out on her ship, the Bentenmaru, while the regular crew is stuck in quarantine due to a virus they got in an earlier episode. When they raid a ship, the girls all show up in various cosplay costumes. Marika chuckles nervously throughout the entire "raid", but the guests on the ship don't seem to mind the costumes overall.

The female protagonist in the manga, He~nshin!! - Sonata Birdie Rush, is forced by contract to wear cosplay outfits as a promotional gimmick while she's competing in golf tournaments.

Miyashita Masashi from Onii-chan to Issho occasionally cosplays as high school girls, and is in general a Wholesome Crossdresser. As a romance novelist, he does this in order to be more one with the female mind and thus use this as an incentive to write better stories.

In Genshiken this is Ohno's hobby, while Tanaka's is costume designer for Cosplay. She often wears his creations for the club and to conventions. In Genshiken 2 they finally officially start dating, thus creating the dream Otaku couple.

In Genesis of Aquarion there is an episode called "Cosplay for the Soul" where Fudou has all the Element Users dress and act as each other to great (and hilarious) effect.

Persona 4: The Animation has Nanako doing a cosplay so convincing that she fools some kids into thinking she's the real Loveline (an in-universe, fictional, magical girl detective).

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX had a school festival episode where everybody dressed as a Duel Monster. Judai was unable to decide which costume to wear and wore a hodgepodge of costumes (one monster's hat, another monster's gloves, boots, etc). Everyone made fun of him for it. The real Dark Magician Girl showed up, but almost everybody assumed she was just a hot stranger in costume.

During the school festival episode of Yu Gi Oh Zexal, there was a period where everyone was in costume (of a Duel Monster, of course). For example, Rei was dressed as Dandylion.

In Kaichou Wa Maid-sama!, Misaki works for a cosplay cafe that specializes in maid costumes. They also often hold events where they cosplay as other characters or concepts, including an in universe magical girl anime, power rangers, and a girls only butler day.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid has Tohru often called a cosplayer, as she usually wears her maid outfit while leaving her horns visible. Later, Kobayashi and Tohru help Makoto out at a comic convention. They find many cosplayers there. As well as many creatures from Tohru's world in their normal forms.

Comics

Spider Jerusalem at one point raids a religious convention while cosplaying as Jesus.

Clark: Oh he can kill me! If anyone can kill me, he can! And the man has absolutely no sense of humor!

In one Angel: After The Fall arc ("Boys and Their Toys"), Angel and Spike go to a Fan Convention, Sci-Fi Fest San Diego, where people start turning into the characters they're cosplaying as. Funny that, since later on when people want him dead Faith suggests he claim someone was cosplaying as him.

This was, in a sense, the origin of the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl. As a Batman fan she made up the costume for a ball. She wanted to win, so she also made up all the gadgets and weapons. Then she witnessed a villain committing a crime on her way to the ball, so she ended up fighting as a superhero for real, and liked it so much that she decided to pursue it seriously.

In the 1970s Marvel Comics and DC Comics would engage in stealth crossovers by having contemporaneous stories taking place in Rutland Vermont, home of an annual superhero themed Halloween parade, where parade goers in the background would be seen dressed in costumes of characters from the other company.

In one issue of Justice League of America, this is taken a step further by having costumed dummies in the parade animated and powered up by the villain of the story, so that there are scenes of Batman fighting a faux Spider-Man and the like.

The "Five Bloody Fingers" arc of Crossed takes place in Japan and chronicles the efforts of a Japanese young man trying to contact his friends during the onset of the outbreak. The two females of the group were in a Comiket-esque convention and once the group reunites, they end up fighting a seemingly endless horde of crossed cosplayers.

Cosplaying as any of the Dark Judges is legal, but not advised. Judge Death's soul is so evil that anyone wearing a facsimile of his uniform tends to become Ax-Crazy and start randomly killing citizens. Another citizen thought it was a good idea to prank old ladies after the real deal has just escaped from prison. Judge Dredd shoots him by mistake and tells him it's his own fault.

Fan Fiction

In Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità, Italy and Japan cosplayed as Light Yagami and Teru Mikami respectively from Death Note for much of the story. And towards the end of the fanfic, after Germany, Italy, and Japan all got married to each otherthank goodness the story takes place in an alternate realityItaly cosplayed as Sailor Moon. Let's just say Germany and Japan almost died.

Sassgardian in Superhero RPF is an avid cosplayer, which in his case means he is Loki and steals other supers' costumes for shits and giggles.

In Discworld and The Big Bang Theory crossover The Many Worlds Interpretation, visiting Discworlders Ponder Stibbons and Johanna Smith-Rhodes are roped into a cosplay night at Stuart's Comic Book Store. Ponder Stibbons is prevailed upon to attend as Harry Potter. He is a sensation. note Terry Pratchett's artists all take unholy glee at drawing Ponder to look more than a little like Daniel Radcliffe as Harry. This is believed to be a comment on accusations by the Potter fandom that Unseen University is a rip-off of Hogwarts and Ponder is a rip-off of Harry. Even though both JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett have denied this is the case and both point to the Discworld predating the Potter 'verse by quite a few years.

The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Alex's new friend, Willow Rosenberg, is a cosplayer, so she gets Alex to come with her to Comic-Con, where Alex cosplays as Kitty Pryde, while Willow goes as Jean Grey. Alex is amazed by how many Terawatt cosplayers there are.

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Film

The Resurrection of Broncho Billy: A 1970 short film about a lonely young man who retreats from his social awkwardness and dull existence by pretending he's in a Western. He dresses up in cowboy gear as he goes about his day in downtown LA, imagining cars in traffic to be a herd of cattle or a random passerby on the street to be his opponent in a showdown at high noon.

In one Freaks and Geeks episode, three of the guys dress up for a science fiction convention.

In season five of Supernatural Sam and Dean meet people cosplaying as them.note There's a series of novels In-Universe called Supernatural that is written by a prophet who writes the books based on what he sees in his visions. They're understandably creeped out by it.

And that's before they find out that the Sam and Dean cosplayers they interacted with throughout the episode are a couple.

In one episode they all dress like The Flash for Penny's Halloween episode.

They go as the Justice League team for the comic book store's New Year's Eve costume party, with Penny as Wonder Woman and Penny's then-boyfriend Zack as Superman.

They win the costume contest because of the three JL teams, theirs was the only one to have a female Wonder Woman.

The episode "The Barkersfield expedition" opens with Sheldon steaming his Data cosplay and Leonard having to borrow make up from his girlfriend for his. The A plot of the episode actually revolves around the guys getting stranded in the desert after pulling over on the way to ComicCon to do a full cosplay photo shoot. Leonard was dressed as Captain Picard, Raj as Worf and Howard as a Borg. They looked awesome.

In one episode, the girls decide to go to Disney land and they buy Disney Princess line-up with costume, make-up, hairdo... The only problem was that they all wanted to be Cinderella. Bernadette claimed it was her idea and that she was a driver, so she won. Penny was Aurora and Amy Snow White. Howard and Leonard really fancied their girlfriends in their outfits.

In the Charmed episode "All Halliwell's Eve" Phoebe cosplayed as Elvira and Piper cosplayed as Glinda. They didn't get to keep the costumes for long however as they were sent back in time to 18th century Virginia.

Castle: Castle, his daughter Alexis and Beckett have histories as cosplayers. Castle has dressed as Edgar Allan Poe, Space Cowboy and a Steampunk soldier on the show. Alexis dressed as a scantily-clad alien assassin at a sci-fi convention (much to Castle's chagrin). Beckett once dressed as a character from a short-lived Star TrekExpy called "Nebula 9" and also dressed in that costume again for Castle (adding a rubber fright mask to freak him out). Also during their teens, both Castle and Beckett dressed as Gene Simmons for Halloween.

The Doctor's companions often engage in a form of cosplay whenever they dress up in period-appropriate outfits during adventures. The Doctor usually averts the trope by steadfastly continuing to wear his usual outfit.

Japanese Visual Kei band Psycho le Cému uses cosplay as their main motif, having Shout-Outs for anime, video games, Super Sentai and fairy tales (from East and West) in their videoclips. Famous especially in US, where they were invited to various anime conventions between 2003 and 2004, and which most of PLC cosplayers around the world until today are from US.

Professional Wrestling

NWA UK and New Japan wrestler Fergal Devitt is known for painting himself during entrances, which sometimes makes him appear like a popular character. His rival Low Ki once got in the act and stayed dressed as Agent 47 throughout their match.

Whenever the WWE Divas have a costume contest, you can expect a few cosplays. Examples include:

Trish Stratus and Mickie James's famous feud eventually had the two of them cosplaying as each other. It started with Mickie dressing as Trish for Halloween. After she won the title she began to appear as Trish with her music and wearing her gear. And then Trish did the reverse. Boy were people confused.

Leva Bates's secondary gimmick, which also become Allison Danger and Mia Yim's secondary gimmick when they teamed with her as Regeneration X (usually as Time Lord and Companion and The Lucha Sisters (usually as Guardians of the Galaxy), respectively.

Tabletop Games

In Ninja Burger, there's a mission called "Anime Convention" in which you've to deliver an order into an event without getting known you're a real ninja instead a cosplayer. In the card's draw◊, there're a Ninja Turtle and an Elektra, by the way.

Video Games

Litchi Faye-Ling of BlazBlue has a cosplay fetish that comes out when she's had too much sake, and whatever cute girl in arm's reach is usually subjected to it. So far, Bullet, Noel and Tsubaki were victimized - Noel was coerced with playtime with Lao Jiu, while Tsubaki was a bit more cooperative... but just a bit. Bullet, however, was dragged into Litchi's clinic/cosplay parlor by Tsubaki herself. According to Arcade commentary, however, Makoto could be next...

Litchi herself is a pretty popular subject to be cosplayed as in real life.

Possible with the Mii Fighters in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/Nintendo 3DS. Previously, it was limited to just headgear, but DLC has started including entire outfits as well. Even already-represented characters like Link are available.

Cosplay-Pikachu is a special female variant of Pikachu in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Depending on her costume, she gets special moves that no other Pikachu could learn.

Its Pikachu Libre form is also featured in Pokémon Tekken, where she counts as her own fighter apart from the regular male Pikachu

Several NPC-trainers in the game wear Pokémon-Cosplays, such as the Poké Kid (as Pikachu) or the Pokémaniac (as Charizard). In some games, Pokéfans are accompanied by their Children in Pikachu or Pichu costumes.

Also, some important trainers in both games and anime, such as Gym Leaders, wear costumes that remind of their signature Pokémon.

In M.U.G.E.N, all characters can get palettes that resemble other characters not just made by their creators, users also can make palettes that "cosplay" some characters from every reference you can get with characters' colors.

The Maid Of Fairewell Heights: Marshmallow changes into a new costume for every room she enters to clean. Although, she changes voluntarily in the first two rooms, she is changed by others in the later rooms. Some examples are the Maid costume for cleaning, the Great Detective costume for investigating, and a Cowgirl costume for a Western setting.

Groove on Fight, the Distant Finale game of Power Instinct series, has Popura Hananokoji, daughter of Clara and also a Magical Girl like her mother, but different from her, her outfits changes with every attack and special move she performs in the game, as well having different winposes where she changes her costumes.

Kirby in his games usually get some clothes of their enemies when he absorves their power, even one of them having a Link's hat. This got further in Super Smash Bros. series, in which he can get Mario's hat, Samus' helmet and even a furry clothes from Donkey Kong.

Fans! naturally gets into this on occasion. Notably Will has been known to dress as a Klingon.

One of the early Hijinks Ensue strips involves Josh's (real-life) cosplay as Kratos netting him Internet notoriety. His response is to create the most awesome costume ever created (this, sadly, did not also happen in real life).

The Closing Credits Sequence of Daria features the characters in various alternate costumes. Most of the time, the costumes are generic an inspecific, like a cheerleader or a business woman, but occasionally they make specific references like Brittany dressed as Edward Scissorhands.

When the cast of Futurama goes to Comic Con 3010, they take part in the costume contest, with some of the contestants dressed as characters from the very show they're on. Lrr tries to invade Earth during the contest, but is dismissed as just another guy in a costume. The winner, by the way, is Bender, who dresses as "every nerd's fantasy", Leela.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, when the Gaang sees the "The Ember Island Players", Zuko gets told his costume needs work, and that his scar is on the wrong side. (The in-universe fictional version of him has a scar on the opposite side, a reference to some Season 1 promotional material that got the scar wrong)

In The Legend of Korra in the final match of the pro-bending season you can see two groups of cosplayers in the stands; one dressed as the Wolf-Bats, one dressed as our heroes, the Fire Ferrets.

On Mike, Lu & Og, Mike will sometimes dress as her favorite superhero Action Guy. Heck, one time she lipsynched an audio tape in the costume.

When The Simpsons go to BiMonSciFiCon Bart learns that you get $3 off admission if you're dressed as a superhero, so he cobbles together a costume.

The Venture Bros. - when The Monarch goes on a double date, in his Monarch outfit, his date asks if he's into cosplay - he angrily corrects her that it's 'cos-business'.

In one episode of Family Guy, Peter and his friends dress up as the A-Team for some sort of convention. They win the costume contest (beating out another group dressed as the A-Team without an actual black guy to play Mr. T) and decide to become a real life A-Team.

In some episodes of Kaeloo, most notably the episode "Let's Play Superpowers", Stumpy cosplays as his idol, comic book hero Mr. Coolskin.

Real Life

Ingrid Oliver, who plays the Doctor Who character "Osgood" (See above) commented that when other fans cosplay Osgood, they are "cosplaying a cosplayer."

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